Politicians who blow response never dig out

By Roderick Random
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Published: March 18, 2017

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ELLEN F. O’CONNELL/Staff PhotographerAs of 10:34 a.m. Tuesday, the snow had accumulated to 12Â¾ inches when measured at the Standard-Speaker office on North Wyoming Street in Hazleton. More than 30 inches is expected to accumulate before this powerful winter storm moves out.

Prospective city leaders never wish disaster on the communities they hope to represent, but they can certainly exploit disasters if the opportunity arises.

We’ve made this point in several previous columns over the years, but events like the Blizzard of 2017 can create an opening for political candidates likes the guys hoping to unseat Scranton Mayor Bill Courtright.

We just don’t know for sure yet.

In the coming days and weeks, Scranton’s citizens will consider whether the city’s (and, by extension, Courtright’s) Department of Public Works performed admirably this week.

If you don’t hear an ongoing outcry, assume the blizzard won’t become an issue to wield against Courtright. Maybe he will even get an upward favorability bump if citizens think everything went as well as could be expected.

If citizens complain a lot, the mayor could pay in November.

The mayor, who praised the DPW’s performance, asked for patience from citizens Thursday and pointed out this was “a once-in-a-lifetime situation.”

“I know it’s frustrating. I apologize for the inconvenience,” he said. “We are doing the best we could.”

At their meeting Thursday, council members called for a postmortem on the response, with several noting complaints by snowbound citizens in neighborhoods.

Based on our driving around the city this week and considering the storm’s size, we could at least get through most streets, but DPW crews still had a lot of work left, especially in alleys, untouched in many places.

At least the DPW crews are out working. Back in January 1999, under Mayor Jim Connors, the administration sent plowing teams home at 6 p.m. in the middle of a snowstorm while crews in others boroughs, townships and cities stayed out.

According to the administration, the men were tired after a day of plowing, didn’t accomplish much, and upcoming overnight snow would just make continuing fruitless.

We can’t say definitively that that snowstorm cost Connors a fourth term two years later. By then, Connors had served 12 years and voters wanted change for many reasons. That snowstorm didn’t help Connors and gave voters another reason to back Chris Doherty for mayor in 2001. Doherty served 12 years of his own after that election.

One thing we can say definitively is that Court­right could have provided more information about the city’s storm response on the city’s website — which had nothing on the storm on its home page as of Friday morning.

Instead, we had a home page “Upcoming Events” section that said, “Sorry, no events to display at this time.”

We did find limited information on the city Police Department’s “Be Part of the Solution” Facebook page and on Facebook pages of Councilmen Joe Wechsler and Pat Rogan. The Police Department announced the downtown parking ban on Facebook and the councilmen announced the city canceled garbage and recycling collections this week.

We also found quite a few people on the police page complaining about a lack of plowing.

“It’s Thursday night and they still haven’t plowed my street in Tripp Park,” one man complained. “Who’s paying me to stay home another day??”

A couple of people defended the DPW.

“My fiancé and his father have been out in loaders plowing for the city since the storm started,” one woman wrote. “There are only so many guys out there working to get all the streets in Scranton cleaned up. Cut the guys some slack. I haven’t seen my fiancé since yesterday because he’s cleaning up for you guys. Hang in there, they’re trying!”

Clinton 9 years later

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s speech Friday night at the Society of Irish Women dinner happened nine years to the day that a young up-and-coming U.S. senator from Illinois named Barack Obama addressed the group.

That visit during the 2008 Democratic presidential race marked Obama’s attempt to cuddle up to local Democrats in a different way. Neither Obama nor Clinton addressed the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of Lackawanna County, but by the time Obama arrived, Clinton already had made two stops here. She marched in the St. Patrick’s Parade on March 15 and roused a boisterous crowd at Scranton High School five days before that. She even stopped in Old Forge that day for pizza.

Obama arrived on St. Patrick’s Day. Before addressing the Irish women, he recorded an hourlong program on veterans for MTV at what used to be Whistles Pub & Eatery on Franklin Avenue.

He visited Scranton the day before his famous speech on race at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and polished the speech after he left here. Remember the Rev. Jeremiah Wright?

As hard as he tried, Obama never seriously cut into Clinton’s support in Lackawanna County in the April 2008 Pennsylvania primary.

She beat him here by almost 3 to 1 as she won the state easily, but Obama eventually beat her for the Democratic nomination and swamped Republican John McCain here in November.

It still puzzles us that Clinton did so well here then and barely beat Republican Donald Trump in Lackawanna last November as the Democratic presidential nominee.

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